As print media houses struggle to sustain in the digital news era, a Google-led study has revealed that the decline of newspaper revenue is not happening because of Search or social advertising but from the loss of newspaper classifieds to specialist online players. Some critics have argued that if Google and Facebook didn't exist, much of the revenue from print newspapers would have stayed with news publishers - that these tech platforms directly disrupted the newspaper business model.

According to Eero Korhonen, Head of News and Publisher Partnerships, Google, Europe, Middle East and Africa, new research looks at the facts which disprove that theory. The analysis from economists at Accenture, commissioned by Google, looks at the revenues of newspapers in Western Europe over nearly two decades to reveal exactly what broke the old business model for newspapers.